This is such a fantastic soup to make when you are overflowing with zucchini, summer squash, and tomatoes. It also freezes and reheats well!

This is a great soup to put on in the early morning, and let it simmer all day long---it took 9 hours on low for my beans to get tender, and I liked it even more 3 hours later when the beans finally split and the zucchini turned translucent.

The flavors are hearty and rich, but this is still light enough to eat with a beautiful garden salad out in the yard.

I used a 6-quart slow cooker. Wash squashes well, and slice in rounds. Place into slow cooker, with diced onion and tomato wedges. Rinse your beans in hot water, and add to cooker. Add broth, pasta sauce, and water. Stir in Italian seasoning.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours, or until beans have reached desired tenderness. 20 minutes before serving, stir in raw pasta. Serve with grated Parmesan and Romano cheese.

The Verdict.

Delicious. I loved how the tomatoes burst completely while slow cooked, and how the squash practically disappeared, so there was no need to chew it---the squash provided an awesome texture and flavor, and since it was so translucent, the kids ate it without fuss. I liked how the prepared pasta sauce gave the broth an oomph sometimes missing in homemade soups, and provided a rich color.We had salad and homemade garlic bread sticks with our meal (bread sticks made from Pamela's Amazing Wheat-Free bread mix).

This sounds great -- I'm a little short on squash BUT I have a small eggplant hanging about from last week's CSA share. I don't use eggplant much...do you think I could incorporate that into this soup in place of some of the squash (if you even think it would be good)?

Yum! Looks and sounds great! I will probably use canned beans too (washed and rinsed of course--you taught me to do that!). Hope all is well! Just noticed you changed your picture. I miss the crockpots and big cheese smile. lol (just teasing you).

Hi Lizzard, hmm. Was it whole wheat? Maybe some of the softer (fresher) pasta would soften and disinigrate faster than the harder stuff. Or it could be that your soup was crazy-hot. You can certainly just stir in the dry pasta a few minutes before serving.

Divacolbert, absolutely. Eggplant would be lovely.

Erin, it's definitely under $5---especially if the veggies are home grown! ;-)

Tracey, yes. You can use dried red beans, but please bring them to a rolling boil on the stovetop for a full 10 minute before adding to the slow cooker. Red beans and red kidneys have the potential to be toxic if they aren't fully cooked.

Thanks, Stephanie! I think the soup was probably crazy-hot because it wasn't whole wheat pasta--just regular old pasta. I will try adding it in just a few minutes before. (You'd think mushy pasta would taste alright, but it absolutely does not.)

Bless you for posting a recipe I can use to consume some of the summer squash and tomatoes that are threatening to take over my house. You bet I'll be putting this in my crock pot first thing in the morning!

Hi Steph....the soup looks delicious. How about precooking the pasta then adding it just before you serve the soup? I use the Fasta Pasta Micro cooker that I got from QVC (lots of stores carry it now) and it works wonderfully. The pasta cooks up perfect and no more boiling a big pot of water anymore. You can cook up to 4 servings in it.Hope your pregnancy is going well.

We start school crazy-early here (both date and time), so the wee ones and I have been hard at it since the 17th (and I start teaching at 6:30.... want to place a bet on how awake my first class of Juniors is?)

This looks wonderful, and the whole deal is sitting in the crock in the fridge waiting for 4:30 to roll around. Perhaps I'll see if the dh can turn the crock on at a decent hour....hmmm... I love that I was able to use the left over spaghetti sauce from today's dinner, and I'll probably just throw the lo noodles in at the table as well....

I miss being able to make fussy food, like eggplant parmesan, or the days we spent canning.... And not once all summer did I think to myself, " I miss grading pretentious essays." hmmm...

Ooh, this was so yummy! But my beans just never ever got cooked through. I'm talking 13 hours later, they're still a little pingy. My sister made this today and she used canned garbanzo beans, which I think would work well - already fully cooked, but they hold up really well to extended cooking in soups and stuff.

I put a call out on my own blog for slow cooker recipes, and a few of my commenters referred me here. Your site is addicting! So many delicious recipes! I'm looking forward to trying many of them, and I'll be checking back often.

Great soup!!!! What a great way to use up all the squash that I have from the farm stand and that which was given to me. Started it this morning and had it for dinner. Little to no trouble to make and my husband loves it as well as my 17 1/2 month old!

I made this tonight, and it was quite nice! I too had a problem with my beans not getting soft enough. Next time I might add canned beans towards the end of the cooking (or just get better dried beans!) It was really nice with some garlic toast.

Hi Stephanie! I was wondering if I needed to presoak the beans... I think that I am going to based on some of the comments here... My store also had no cannelli beans, so we will be making a go of it with Great Northern! I will actually be blending this soup for my 11 month old son- LOVE all the veggies for him! Thanks.

I made this the other night (the 9 hour cooking time attracted me!) and I thought it was great. I used dried black beans since I had no white beans and instead of dried herbs I used fresh basil, marjoram and flat leaf parsely from the garden. I REALLY liked it.

I made this using canned garbanzos beans and after 10 hours of cooking they kind of disintegrated and it made a nice thick broth. we added shredded mozzarella on top as well as some salt and pepper. loved it.

This was so good! I couldn't feed my 1 year old fast enough, and my husband (who is a huge meat lover) had 3 bowl fulls! The 3 year old was a little harder sell, but we still were able to convince her to eat about half her portion. Thanks for the great recipe!

Hopping back on to tell you that this was an amazing soup even in summer. I subbed mushrooms for the zucchini and it smelled so good that my mouth watered waiting for it. Love the rich italian spiciness of this one. Thank you for another timely recipe.

Hi there! I just found your blog from a link on the Midwest Mama's blog. So glad I stopped by. This recipe looks delicious and reminds me of a soup I used to make in college. I love cooking with my crock pot, but unfortunately don't always know what to make or remember to use it. I can't wait to read more, sample your recipes and buy the cookbook. I'm inspired to use my crock pot more!

I made this last night! By coincidence, a neighbor gave us her home grown vegetables, so I was excited to be able to make this recipe! It came out great, everyone in my family had some, which is rare :] and it made a ton of soup, so we're all still eating leftovers since it was so good! Thanks

We made this the other day and the kids kept coming to the kitchen,"just to smell it some more". My 3 girls (10, 8, & 6) loved it. My husband raved. My 3 yr. old son had to be bribed to take one bite. But, that's normal for him. Thanks for the great recipe!Tina

I'm definitely going to add this to my menus planning for next week. BTW: I just discovered your blog and will be a frequent visitor. Like you, I'm in love with my crock pot. Not everyone understands this. When I blogged about how heart broken I was when my favorite (I have more than two) crock pot cracked, my husband thought it was a low point, creatively speaking. Ha - I'm glad to have found a someone who would understand how truly tragic that was.

This smells SO delicious while it's cooking! I switched it up a bit to go with what I had- I had frozen tomato juice from last years tomato boom (this years tomatoes all got blight!) so I used that instead of the broth and spaghetti sauce. I upped the italian seasoning a bit to compensate. I started mine a bit late to have a full 9 hours so I did presoak my beans (a bean soup mix- all I had) and they seem to be softening up wonderfully. The kids will love the pasta and I love that it can just cook until my FIL gets here. Many a meal was ruined since he gets running behind and arrives late- so this will be perfect. I will be making this a lot this fall and next summer. Yummy- thanks!

Your recipe looks deliciious and I could not wait to try it! I have it in the slow cooker now on high, given that this family never wakes up early enough to cook ALL DAY....do you think it will still work out right? Planning for a six hour cook time! Thanks again.

I'm in the process of making this right now (am eating a tiny "sample" bowl as I type this). I didn't have the beans so I substituted pork sausage. This stuff is so good and makes use of the things I have on hand! I have a ton of zucchini and fresh tomatoes in my garden and this is just perfect! :)

I made this mostly because I had ever ingredient already in my fridge (thanks to the CSA) or pantry. It was awesome and my toddler loved it. (I did, however, use canned beans, so I didn't have to worry about the beans not being done). Thanks for posting!

I made this with canned beans, and lots more spaghetti sauce. I added one sweet red pepper cut into eighths. I would add another pepper next time. Cooked it 5 hours on high. Loved it - renamed it Ratatouille Soup!

I made this soup today. I think that if you use canned beans that it may be better to remove the cup of water from the recipe. (Soup was a little thin so I added more tomato sauce.) I also didn't have enough squash so I added some mushrooms.

I made this the other night and needed to add more than 1/2 cup of pasta (added maybe 2 cups of dry pasta). Also had to add more seasoning to the mix. Not sure if it was a little bland because I used low salt chicken broth, but once I added some more seasoning it was much better. Really nice meal!

I have had your site in my favs for a year. My daughter learned about this site at work during lunch. We have been following it. She has already gone through two crockpots. The first one had a glitch and she had to send it back. I have used a crockpot for well over 35 years. It is a life saver. Thank you for sharing your cooking knowledge with the world.

Well, it is about 7 years since you first posted this and today I finally got around to trying it out. It is in the pot now. I started it too late for dinner today (but I already had other plans for that anyway.) My husband is working the next couple of nights, so this will be a good dinner for me.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe, but as tomato chunks make me gag, and cutting up raw tomatoes gives me hives on my fingers, I omitted them and threw in a diced orange pepper that I had in the fridge. I am okay with a cooked tomato product, so the smooth (not chunky) pasta sauce has been used in this.

I had a can of the beans, and so I rinsed and used those rather than buy the dried beans, but I will give that a go sometime too. I was trying to stick with using things I already had in the pantry.

I've added a partial bag of the Trader Joe frozen grilled chicken strips (please don't judge me!) also to the pot for a little more protein.

I think this will be an excellent soup to share with my neighbor too, who is recovering from a heart attack. I like that it is low fat, not too heavy, and also has the protein of the beans (and the additional chicken I put in).